Year of the rights deal

A crew from NBC Sports directs coverage of a PGA event. Networks have had a difficult time making the numbers work in the current PGA Tour rights package.

The most consistent trend in sports media rights this year may be inconsistency.
Four major media packages either are on the table or are heading into negotiations:
the Sunday night-Monday NFL package (ABC-ESPN); the Sunday-Wednesday MLB package
(ESPN); half of NASCAR (NBC and TNT); and the PGA Tour (ABC, CBS and NBC).

Each contract includes first refusal, an exclusive negotiating window for the
incumbents or preference for incumbents, leaving would-be suitors waiting on the
sidelines sometimes for months or a year. Aside from that and some network crossover,
they have precious little in common.

Looking for a dollar trend based on last year’s deals? Don’t bother.
Some people would like to think the double-digit increase the NFL pulled out of
Fox and CBS portends a similar increase for No. 2 TV sport NASCAR when all it
really indicates is a probable double-digit hit for Disney if it wants to keep
the prime-time NFL package.

“It becomes sports specific and it depends a lot on the leverage a particular
sport might have,” said sports media consultant Neal Pilson, who declined
to discuss specific deals because he’s working with NASCAR on its upcoming
negotiations. It’s about degrees of competition, scheduling, the time of
year, ratings, cost per thousand and a host of other factors.

ESPN Chief Financial Officer Christine Driessen agrees: “There’s so
much difference in which sport you may be talking about, there may be some leveling
off, slowing of growth, increases in rights — the competitive environment,
the economic environment, what people want to use sports for.”

unmatched market power,
is literally in a league of its own. That’s why it manages to draw increases
even when partners lose money, and why it can find takers when others walk away.

Then there’s a factor that’s almost intangible when you’re dealing
with events that really aren’t fungible. “The unique thing about sports
properties, unlike entertainment when you can get another actor, another show
— there’s only one PGA Tour, only one baseball and you don’t have
a chance a week later and you may not get another chance for four years,”
said Rob Correa, senior vice president of programming at CBS Sports.

Pilson added, “It’s hard to extrapolate from what has happened to what’s
going to happen.”

But, in a way, that’s what nearly everyone involved tries to do. They build
models for every possible scenario based on a mix of past performance and all
those factors.

NFL

ABC and ESPN reportedly have until October to come to terms with the NFL, and
then the package would be

CBS has already extended its NFL rights package, a deal that lasts through 2011.

up for grabs. Odds are in favor of an early settlement.
Some rumors had an announcement coming during the week leading up to the Super
Bowl that would keep the package at Disney with a minimal increase from ABC
and double digits from ESPN. If the odds are wrong, nearly every broadcast network
with the exception of CBS, which has little reason to muck around with its prime-time
schedule, would be considered a possible candidate for at least part of the
package. Another possibility would be a Thursday-Saturday package.

Then there’s the Bornstein factor — the possibility that the NFL might
be willing to forgo guaranteed gratification and put some games on the NFL Network
headed by NFL broadcast guru Steve Bornstein. But the NFL Network is far from
fully distributed, one of the major risks any league faces when trying to use
its own network for leverage. It’s hard to believe the NFL would forgo
the income from any of the prime-time games.

ESPN’s Driessen would only repeat the network mantra that “we’re
in negotiations.” NBC and Turner are both on the record with interests
in football; NBC could team up with NBC Universal sibling USA. Fox wouldn’t
mind more football at the right price, especially if it came with cable rights.

PGA Tour

With ratings and advertiser interest dropping from the go-go years during the
height of Tigermania, Commissioner Tim Finchem and crew will have to be creative
and persuasive to stay in place, let alone make any real gains.

One network executive said the problem isn’t the league or even the difficult
sponsorship and advertising market, it’s the high price television is paying
for the current contract. Another said, “It’s going to be a challenge
because of the past couple of years from the ad perspective.”

Paradoxically, this puts the current networks in a better position. “When
you’re losing money, you have leverage,” said Barry Frank, vice chairman
at IMG/TWI.

The current deals with ABC, CBS and NBC run from

The PGA Tour must convince networks that a new rights deal would be money well spent.

2003 through 2006, but were
made in the summer of 2001 against a backdrop of ratings boosted by Tiger Woods.
Scant weeks later, the events of 9/11 tilted the world. The financial industry,
traditionally a major supporter of the tour, suffered significant losses followed
by a series of financial scandals that turned some sponsors into ostriches while
others simply disappeared. The advertising market was depressed.

The combination sent those deals, which were calibrated for a narrower margin
than previous contracts, into the red. The last contract won the tour a 40 to
50 percent increase in rights fees. The networks would like to see a return
to the days when the PGA Tour consistently turned a profit instead of what one
executive describes as tens of millions of dollars lost across the board.

Gil Kerr, senior vice president of broadcast and programming for the PGA Tour,
can’t help sounding a tad Pollyanna-ish as he stresses his belief that
the results will be different this time. He cites the replacement of the 18
sponsors who left post-9/11, renewed interest from the financial sector and
more demand than inventory.

“In the last negotiation, we narrowed their margins but we expected there
to be a margin,” said Kerr. “We’ve seen in the past couple of
years they’ve been challenged by the economy. We think in the future there
would be a margin again. We believe the PGA Tour can and will make money.”

If so, it would be one of the rare major packages that actually brings money
to the bottom line.

The tour talks to its partners first but has the freedom to look at any offers.
Turner would be interested in picking up part of the PGA Tour, but only four-day
packages or Saturday and Sunday, according to Turner Sports President David
Levy. Traditionally, with few exceptions, golf rights are sold in a Thursday-Friday
package for cable, with weekends reserved for over the air. “With Turner’s
philosophy focusing on premium sport events, we’re not interested in a
Thursday-Friday-only sports package,” Levy said.

NASCAR

NBC and Turner executives are upfront about wanting to maintain their three-way
deal with NASCAR, which in turn has said it really likes its partners and wants
to stay with them. Sound easy? Far from it. Mutual respect helps when the starter’s
pistol pops but that doesn’t mean everyone is gunning for the same finish
line.

“We are very interested in renewing our NASCAR deal,” Levy said. “Certainly
it’s been a good relationship for all of us.”

The joint venture has an exclusive one-month window in December. The networks
have had conversations with NASCAR about starting negotiations earlier, but
nothing has been settled. “We don’t want to go up to December,”
Levy said. So far, there’s been chatter about what some of the needs might
be for both sides — more prime-time races, where New York might fit in
down the road.

Just to muddy the waters, the Fox-NASCAR deal runs through 2008, but NASCAR
has an opt-out clause at the end of 2006 that would allow the restructuring
of all broadcast rights at the same time.

Then there’s ESPN, which nurtured racing only to lose it on the last pass.
George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, has said he wants it back.
IMG’s Frank said, “He’ll tilt it by the degree of his interest.
Talk is cheap.”

Will ESPN be willing to meet NASCAR’s financial goals this time? Only if
they mesh with ESPN’s economics and needs. If ESPN were to walk away from
the NFL — the one unthinkable on most lists — NASCAR could become
more necessary, hence more valuable to the network. More money would be available.

ESPN has shown before that it’s willing to walk. That’s why it doesn’t
have NASCAR now and why Disney won’t have the Bowl Championship Series.

MLB

The broadcast networks don’t want a prime-time

ESPN’s current deal with Major League Baseball cost an estimated $851 million.

regular-season baseball
package. Turner already has the right to as many as 90 exclusive games a season
and so far no other cable networks are an obvious fit. Under its current deal
with MLB, baseball fills hundreds of hours for ESPN. Despite the apparent lack
of interest by other cable networks in the Sunday-Wednesday package, that doesn’t
mean a new ESPN deal with MLB is guaranteed.

Baseball can rattle the sword of its own channel; league executives have said
they aren’t planning to carry live games but could adjust the plan if they
can’t get what they want from ESPN. Other cable networks, such as USA,
may factor in.

“ESPN really needs it,” said Kagan Research senior analyst John Mansell.
“But at some point they’re going to say it’s not worth it.”

The current 2000-2005 deal cost ESPN an estimated $851 million. MLB’s first
offer reportedly stripped the package to the bare broadcast rights, a sure no-go
for a company publicly committed to acquiring rights that cover all of its media.
This one could go down to the wire.